1. Need for the Invention
Daily and consistent use of dental floss is known to remove bacterial plaque in proximity to the gums and between the teeth. Dental health care workers, including dentists and oral hygienists, recommend a daily regime of flossing. To induce the habit, it is known to place the floss in a convenient location for easy access and to remind a person in the location to use the dental floss. Generally, by tradition and convenience, such location is a bathroom. But most dental floss containers sold in pharmacies and the like are packaged so as not to encourage a person to place the floss container in the location at a place where the person will be reminded to use the floss. In fact, most floss containers are hidden away in a medicine cabinet or the like.
2. Prior Art
A number of inventions have been proposed to meet the objectives of easy access to dental floss containers and reminding users to use the containers. One example of a dental floss dispenser meeting these objectives can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 1,455,673, issued to Shalek on May 15, 1923. Shalek's device is a dental floss dispenser that has a container which is adapted to hold a spool of dental floss. The container has a cover that may be pivotally opened to present a strand of dental floss which may be guided from the container outside of the container and which may be clipped to break the thread of floss for use by the user. The container has a bracket for securing it to a wall, preferably a bathroom wall adjacent a wash bowl.
Another example can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,016,661 issued to Israel et al. on May 21, 1991. Israel et al. discloses a dental floss container holder and floss dispenser that has a housing with a front and back portion. A contoured resilient material that is made of closed or opened cell foam or neoprene is affixed to the interior of the housing. The resilient material will retain variously shaped dental floss containers and spools. A cutter is position on the exterior of the housing, which is wall mountable.
While the two foregoing examples meet the objective of having the dental floss container convenient to remind a person to use the dental floss, they are not always successful. This is particularly true in that flossing usually is done in early morning when a person may not be fully awake so as to be sensitive to such hygienic demands or in the evening when a person is so tired as to forget the least pressing preparation before retiring to bed. Israel et al. manages to disclose a possible device that would provide a better reminder to the person. As an aside, Israel et al. suggests that "a timing device or alarm device to serve as a reminder to floss daily," may be used with their invention. But Israel et al. failed to tell just how such a device would be used and so do not provide a disclosure that one of ordinary skill in the art would be prepared to incorporate into such a dispenser without his or her own invention of the device.